Direct catalytic partial oxidation of allyl ether to acrylate ester is not known. The product, allyl acrylate, is a useful building block—for chemicals and polymers. Acrylate esters can be used as monomers or comonomers in radical or cationic polymerization systems wherein the olefin functionality is retained in the product and can be further modified in subsequent reactions, for example crosslinking, silylation, etc. Furthermore, monomers of this class are useful in light curable coatings, inks and adhesives.
Currently, allyl acrylate can be produced by esterification of acrylic acid and allyl alcohol. Acrylic acid is produced from acrylonitrile, which comes from partial oxidation of propane. Other approaches include the Pd-catlyzed oxidation of propylene in the presence of acrylic acid and the transesterification with alkyl esters of acrylic acid with allyl alcohol.
It would be advantageous to develop a new route to acrylate esters via direct catalytic partial oxidation of allyl ether, which would reduce the number of process steps and improve process efficiency.